A much needed “Likbez” about Russian Tu-160 bombers in Venezuela

Rusty museum antiques or the Star War’s Death Star?

Remember what happened when the Admiral Kuznetsov carrier sailed around Europe to reach the eastern Mediterranean? NATO leaders were making fun of the black smoke coming out of the ship’s engine while at the same time shadowing the Kuznetsov as if it was the Death Star from the Star Wars series and as if it’s final goal was to obliterate the British Isles. Frankly, this is nothing new. Even during the Cold War, western propagandists liked to dismiss all Soviet weapons systems as junk while at the same time declaring that they were the terrifying weapons of a Mordor-like Evil Empire set to destroy the Entire Free World. This time around, we are seeing exactly the same pattern yet again:

NATO is busy intercepting “museum pieces”

The US Ambassador to Colombia Kevin Whitaker declared that these aircraft were so old that they were “museum pieces.”

Mike Pompeo (who makes even Nikki Haley look almost smart and almost sweet!) angrily declared that this was a case of “two corrupt governments squandering public funds, and squelching liberty and freedom while their people suffer.”

Diego Moya-Ocampos, a senior analyst for IHS Markit Ltd, a London-based global information provider, declared that “This is Russia trying to force the U.S. to say, ‘listen if you withdraw from this and if you make these moves in Europe, we will make these moves as well.'” He also added that a “Russian base would represent a much larger investment in Venezuela than Russia has signaled it’s willing to make, as well as a larger provocation to the United States.”

There is so much military illiteracy in the AngloZionist Empire that, once again, I decided to engage in some much needed LikBez to try to set the record straight.

First, the basics: the Tu-160 is, indeed, a supersonic heavy strategic bomber, meaning that they have the speed and range to strike targets at long distance (how far depends on the load, the availability of in-flight refueling and flight profile; usually a max range of 12’000km is quoted). While the Tu-160 can carry regular (“dumb”) bombs, it’s primary weapons are cruise missiles, specifically six Raduga Kh-55SM/101/102/555 missiles or twelve AS-16 Kickback missiles. The former has a range of about 4,500–5,000–5,500 km (2,800–3,100–3,400 mi; some sources even claim as much as 10,000 km (6,200 mi) range with a flight endurance of 10 hours. The AS-16 is a short range weapon with a range of 300 km (160 nmi) which can fly at 40,000 m (130,000 ft) and then dive at a speed of Mach 5. Both of these missiles have a low radar cross-section, advanced guidance (including terminal), onboard electronic warfare kit and maneuvering capabilities. Finally, these missiles exist in various variants including conventional, nuclear and anti-ship. The first conclusion, these figures suggest, is that Russia does not need to send her bombers anywhere near the USA to deliver a powerful conventional or nuclear strike: with a range anywhere between 4500km and 10000km the main missile armament of the Tu-160 does not require this bomber to be anywhere near the target at the moment of launch of the missile. Instead of attacking from Venezuela, the Tu-160 can fire its missiles from over the polar cap and still strike the continental USA.

This is true for bombers, but this is even more true of ship or submarine-based ballistic and cruise missiles.

Second, this is hardly the first time the Russian military paid a visit to Venezuela: Russian Aerospace bombers visited the country in 2013, and Russian Navy ships did so in 2008. Nothing happened then, and nothing happened now.

I will admit, this is a scary looking “strateg” (as these supersonic heavy strategic bombers are called by their crews)

So what’s all the hysterics all about?

I think that this is all about internal US politics and, shall we say, “information management”: every time the Russian military visits Venezuela, the US public comes dangerously close to finding out three things the Neocons and their Deep State desperately want to keep a secret from the US public:

The US mainland is completely undefended for the very simple reason that (almost!) nobody is threatening it.

Russia has the means to deliver conventional and nuclear strikes anywhere in the USA.

We have never been as close to a full-scale conventional and nuclear war as we are today.

Let’s look at each one of these statements one by one.

The USA is totally undefended because nobody threatens it.

True, Russia and (to a lesser degree) China, can strike the USA. But since they could only do that at the cost of a terrible counter-strike by US conventional and nuclear forces, US force planners and analysts are pretty darn confident that neither Russia nor China will initiate such a strike. Besides, unlike the AngloZionist Empire, neither the Soviet Union nor Russia has ever planned for an attack on the US or Europe.

[Sidebar: quick reminder for the believers in “western values” – this is what the wonderful western allies had in store for the Soviet Union by the end of WWII:Plan Totality (1945): earmarked 20 Soviet cities for obliteration in a first strike: Moscow, Gorki, Kuybyshev, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Saratov, Kazan, Leningrad, Baku, Tashkent, Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Tagil, Magnitogorsk, Molotov, Tbilisi, Stalinsk, Grozny, Irkutsk, and Yaroslavl.Operation Unthinkable (1945) assumed a surprise attack by up to 47 British and American divisions in the area of Dresden, in the middle of Soviet lines. This represented almost half of roughly 100 divisions (ca. 2.5 million men) available to the British, American and Canadian headquarters at that time. (…) The majority of any offensive operation would have been undertaken by American and British forces, as well as Polish forces and up to 100,000 German Wehrmacht soldiers.Operation Dropshot (1949): included mission profiles that would have used 300 nuclear bombs and 29,000 high-explosive bombs on 200 targets in 100 cities and towns to wipe out 85% of the Soviet Union’s industrial potential at a single stroke. Between 75 and 100 of the 300 nuclear weapons were targeted to destroy Soviet combat aircraft on the ground.
But the biggest proof is, I think, the fact that none of these plans was executed, even though at the time the Anglosphere was safely hidden behind its monopoly on nuclear weapons (and were Hiroshima and Nagasaki not destroyed in part to “scare the Russians”?) See here for more details]

However, if the people of the USA realize that they don’t have any credible enemy, they might wonder why their country spends more on “defense” than the rest of the planet combined. They might even get angrier if they came to realize that even though their country spends more on “defense” than the rest of the planet combined, they remain entirely unprotected.

Russia can wipe out the United States

During the Cold War, the vast majority of US Americans knew that the USSR could wipe out the USA in a massive nuclear strike. However, since the end of the Cold War, this fact has been somewhat pushed back away from the awareness of most US decision makers (hence their frankly suicidal rhetoric and policies). Nowadays the big difference with the Cold War is that Russia can strike anywhere inside the United States using only conventional weapons. Two years ago I wrote a detailed analysis on how Russia is preparing for WWIII so I won’t go into all the details here, but just mention one excellent example of this new conventional capability of the Russian military:

Take the Kalibr cruise-missile recently seen in the war in Syria. Did you know that it can be shot from a typical commercial container, like the ones you will find on trucks, trains or ships? Check out this excellent video which explains this:

Just remember that the Kalibr has a range of anywhere between 50km to 4000km and that it can carry a nuclear warhead. How hard would it be for Russia to deploy these cruise missiles right off the US coast in regular container ships? Or just keep a few containers in Cuba or Venezuela? This is a system which is so undetectable that the Russians could deploy it off the coast of Australia to hit the NSA station in Alice Springs if they wanted, a nobody would even see it coming.

And keep in mind that the Kalibr is not the only conventional/nuclear-capable missile (ballistic or cruise) which Russia can unleash against US military targets worldwide, including inside the USA. The weapons systems listed by Putin in his now famous speech are all formidable weapons in their own right (see Andrei Martynov’s excellent analysis of the military implication of these new weapon systems and my own analysis of their political implications). Some readers might mistakenly think that Russian conventional missiles are somehow less of a threat than nuclear ones, but that would be a major mistake. In deterrence and escalation theory it is crucial for each side to have what is called “escalation dominance” at all levels of the retaliatory spectrum. Simply put, the so-called “Mutually Assured Destruction” (or MAD) is a very weak posture because of its very low first-strike stability (due to the “use them or lose them” force structure) and because using nuclear weapons is, under a MAD posture, equivalent to suicide. However, having small tactical nukes and, even more so, conventional strategic weapons gives Russia a significant escalation dominance advantage which the USA cannot match. In a 2017 article I debunked in some details the two crucial US American myths about the US military posture; the first myth is the myth of the US military superiority and the second myth is the myth about the US invulnerability, so I will just repeat here that these two myths are total bunk. The reality is that the USA is *extremely* vulnerable to Russian conventional strikes (see the article I mention for all the details): Russia has a wide choice of conventional weapons, ranging from hypersonic ballistic missiles to long-range cruise missiles. Furthermore, Russia has absolutely no need at all to send two Tu-160 bombers to Venezuela to somehow increase that capability.

A war between the USA and Russia will probably happen soon unless the USA changes its suicidal political course

One truth which is never mentioned by the AngloZionist propaganda is that Russia has retreated as far as she can and that there is a broad consensus in Russia among both the political elites and the people that Russia cannot retreat any further. God knows that even if all the “Putin caved in” propaganda is nonsense, it remains nonetheless true that the perception of the western elites is usually a strange mix of dismissing Russia while, at the same time, presenting Russia as the number one enemy on the planet. I don’t know whether the people making these statements really believe them or not, but the resulting policy is one of a total and never-ending hostility mixed in with a quasi-religious belief in the superiority and even invulnerability of the “collective West.” And this is precisely the kind of mindset which results in stupid and bloody wars! Let me repeat this again: Russia has already done all she can to avoid a war with the USA, and there is nothing else she can do; in contrast, every single US policy towards Russia is bringing us one step closer to an almost inevitable war.

The two Tu-160’s in this context: think of it as a *gentle* wake-up call

4 Russian aircraft in Venezuela is all it took to freak out the Empire :-)

The importance of the visit of the two Tu-160’s to Venezuela is not military, but psychological: by showing up so near the USA in such a highly visible manner, the Russians are not threatening the USA or sending some kind of message to the US military. What they are doing is trying to gently wake up the media-zombified US population by showing it that yes, the “evil Putin” has the means to “reach” as far as the USA if needed. This, while hardly any big news to the US military, seems to be coming like somewhat of a shock to a lot of folks in the USA. The reality is that a single modern Russian SSBN in port in Russia is a far more formidable threat to the USA than these two bombers, but that is not something that anybody is willing to admit to the people of the USA, so Russia sent her two bombers in a clearly visible way to force even the corporate Ziomedia to mention it.

In case of a shooting war between Russia and the USA, a couple of Russian bombers won’t make much of a difference, but if they can act as the proverbial tip of the iceberg and, maybe, finally get the US public (or, at least some of its representatives) to wake up to the real threat and demand that the USA pull-back from its current full-scale confrontation with Russia, then this would be a good result.

A much more serious threat: A Borei-class SSBN docking in its home port of Severodvinsk in northern Russia

If not, then at least the Kremlin has shown support for the Venezuelan government and the Venezuelan people by proving to the world that the famous “Monroe Doctrine” is long dead and that the putatively “sole superpower on the planet” can do absolutely nothing to prevent Russia (or any other country for that matter) from openly thumbing a collective nose at Uncle Shmuel.

Will that be enough?

I doubt it. But nothing is preventing Russia from trying other, possibly more explicit, “wake-up calls.” For example, a Russian Borei-class SSBN could fire a few of its SLBMs in a ripple-launch and have them land somewhere close enough to the USA to force the US media to pay attention (usually the Russians use the Kura missile test range in the Russian Far East, but these launches are entirely ignored in the West). So why not strike some target in, say, Venezuela? Of course, before any such launch, Russia would fully inform all the countries affected, especially, the USA and use either a dummy or a conventional warhead. And, of course, these missiles would be fired from the submarine’s dock, without even leaving port, not necessarily the main dock, but one situated further out on the Kola Peninsula would be an option. Heck, the Russians could even invite the foreign press corps, and the military attaches accredited in Russia and transmit the full thing on TV. This kind of demonstration runs very much against the Russian military culture and its maniacal obsession with secrecy (such a launch would not be without risks), but surely it is worth taking such a risk if that can bring the AngloZionist leaders and the population they rule over to their senses. Okay, maybe my idea is far-fetched, but you get the idea. Russia needs to not only talk but actually *show* that her weapons can reach well-inside the USA (and anywhere along the extremely fragile US coastline) and then wait and see whether the Americans want to engage in serious, meaningful, talks finally (as opposed to the ridiculous short chats Trump’s handlers allow him to have with Putin when they meet at some kind of summit; apparently “tweeting” is an accurate representation on how Trump’s brain works…).

Conclusion: All wars eventually end. The critical question is “how?”

Russia and the Empire have been at war since at least 2014. This has been an 80% informational war, 15% economic war and only 5% (or less) a kinetic one. But the Empire is running out of stupid accusations and hollow threats, its economic warfare has been a dismal failure, and all that’s left is to “go kinetic” which would be a disaster for all parties. Bottom line:

The US dream of subduing Russia is long dead.

The US dream of threatening Russia is long dead.

The US dream of remaining the sole superpower (aka “World Hegemon”) is long dead.

What can the US do in this situation?

To trigger a kinetic war would be suicidal. Bullying Russia with threats does not work. Pretending like reality is not happening is the current US strategy, but it is clearly unsustainable (and every Tu-160 visit to Venezuela further undermines it).

I don’t see any other solution than to put an end to this war and (finally!) negotiate a global peace plan with Russia.

If not, expect many more Russian military hardware getting closer to the US borders.

The Saker

The Essential Saker II: Civilizational Choices and Geopolitics / The Russian challenge to the hegemony of the AngloZionist Empire

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101 Comments

I recently saw a couple of videos about the California fires in which it was (fairly convincingly) argued that the fires were started deliberately by laser weapons or direct energy weapons.

Nuclear weapons have the huge disadvantage of causing massive radiation rendering territory unusable for the “victor” and the technology is also some seventy years old.

Given that the US has long had a secret Space program and spends unlimited amounts of money on weaponry, do you think, Saker, that they may now be planning such laser/direct energy weapons, on platforms orbiting Earth for example which have precise targeting capabilities enabling the AZ empire to target individual buildings or even entire cities? And of course no radiation fall out .
Maybe California was a test run?
The Russians have mentioned these types of weapons but understandably say little about where this technology is at.

Are nuclear weapons still the ultimate weapon or are we now in a post nuclear era ?

I also read that both Russia and China are rapidly developing anti-satellite weapons.

Could it be that whilst we all think in terms of nuclear destructive power, new more “usable” weapons have been developed with huge destructive power but without the radiation?

As an Australian, I can assure you that “laser weapons or direct energy weapons” are not needed to start bushfires. Broken bottles, cigarette butts and fallen powerlines do a really good job. Add in pyromaniacs and bushfires are a regular thing in Australia. Even cars parked in long grass with catalytic converters start fires. And when a fire gets big enough – god help everyone. Skip the conspiracy theories about fires.

Стивен with all respect, Tomsk is making very valuable comment here and cannot be dismissed as conspiracy theory but it needs to be included in equation. Prudent observer of history knows that in the past Western powers tested new weapons on its citizens while it was dismissed as conspiracy theory back then.

On your part educate yourself on that subject which differs from simple brush fire.

If I may be so bold as to post a third and final comment on this subject. The combination of Trump’s saying that the US was going to weaponise Space and the long running top secret Space Program, Spacex etc combined with Russia’s announcement that they could take down the US without using nuclear weapons, suggest strongly that new non nuclear weapons are being developed.

Putin also said Russia has laser weapons and in another article I read that both China and Russia are working hard to develop anti – satellite weapons. These could of course be used to cripple US/NATO military telecoms but they might also be used to take out orbiting platforms carrying laser/dew weapons targeting their respective countries.

I also find it hard to believe that weapons developed in the 1940s which though powerful but are in fact for all practical purposes, useless, are state of the art in 2018.

If I remember correctly, about ten years ago China shot down one of their own aging satellites, which immediately caused a panic in the US, as China had demonstrated an ability to shoot down unwanted US satellites.

Steven – I did know that fires can be started with matches, broken bottles etc but surely that is beside the point?
The existence of laser and direct energy weapons is no conspiracy theory as you’ll see if you do a bit of research. Just one example which must be at least thought provoking-

“Directed-energy weapons—or “lasers,” as they are commonly known—present the possibility of transforming warfare due to numerous operational advantages, such as incredible speed and range, light weight, improved accuracy and limited collateral damage”.

The most likely reason for encouraging mentioning of directed energy weapons is in my view to obscure what happened at 9/11. If you believe they used lasers from satellites then show us calculations of necessary power from that distance where the light would in addition be subject to various turbulent and absorbing obstacles on the way. Realistic calculations please.
If one insists on something other than ordinary human culprits on the ground, then of course drones from a much lower altitude would be a possibility although it would be more effective to use conventional means with those drones rather than lasers, including the addition of inflammable chemicals.

“Australian” you might be right but one never knows with the US lunatics. I read some reports that this problems in California (with recurring wild fires) could be blamed to carelessness, negligence from the part of electric companies. Blamed specifically this last big wild fire was one with a long name “Pacific gas and electric company” or something similar, but with big connections high up in the government they manage to keep somehow out this time.

Our local AM radio stations are transmitting advertisement by lawyers to sue PG&E for their losses in said fires, as PG&E has admitted in writing publicly that the HV lines arced and failed immediately prior to the fires, which started under the wires… PG&E says the wires were damaged, possibly sabotaged, via gunfire…powerful rifles in backwoods are ordinary, and people do sometimes shoot at the insulators and wires…which are aluminum with steel core, though I have never seen this.

Aluminum is a combustible metal in air if it’s hot…eg in an arc…even one wire to another …the droplets are burning as they fall to earth. Sometimes the droplets are consumed, sometimes they make it to the shrubbery.

Withal, fires ignited by ordinary means.

That said, naturally a laser is a weapon/tool that can be used to start a fire…

Occam’s Razor says to assume simple – arc > fire.

Maybe it was Klingonz on Mars… Don’t bet on that, though. Mark Twain wrote about the annual fires, they are worse now in drought.

mod-to note: please do continue this thread on the Moveable Feast Cafe. Fascinating but off topic here.

As another Australian, I can assure you that may things have started bushfires in Australia, but that does not negate the possibility of governments initiating fires via ;laser weapons’.

You may remember the 7th of February 2009 ‘Black Saturday’ bushfires in Victoria where only one day of hot weather created massive bushfires that killed 173 persons and hospitalised over 400, and then the Premier, John Brumby called for a ‘Royal Commission’ to hide the truth.

mod-to note: Further comments along this thread (laser weapons/fires) posted to this article will be trashed. By all means please carry the discussion to the Moveable Feast Cafe.

I cant help thinking it is too late. That we have our hair caught up in the winding machine and we can do nothing but grimly witness, as we are dragged relentlessly in, Armageddon. I dont believe we are here at this moment in history without this moment having been planned. Some people want Armageddon. Dream of it. Pray for it. Sacrifice for it. Live for it. Kill for it.

Are these end times. If they are then according to the book few are meant to be aware of it. It is supposed to be quite the surprise…Armageddon. The master returning, and all that. The thief in the night.

I dont think we are at Armageddon yet but I agree with Putin. We have begun scaling its foothills. You acknowledge the inertia of events will soon overcome restraint but cant snap out of it to act in self defence.

Why would a bright educated man settle for popcorn and nuclear illumination. Personally I would prefer to ride it out as long as possible. I dont think hiding in a hole in the ground is the way to go either. All it is is a grave. Above ground during the active nuke phase but as far away from trouble as possible.

Tomsk
I don’t think that California was a test run. Why cause damage to the Californian economy on purpose ? However, according to one analyst, California was chosen on purpose, because the secessionist movement in California is stronger than the one in Texas. The intent was to cause damage and prove that California cannot function without the US.

What would it take to put that in space? What would it take to put these fuel sources in space? Do you understand the fuel source for lasers and how big they are? Do you understand the science of these things? Do you assume because they have them, its in space? Do you know the effects of earth’s atmosphere on the laser and distance of target effect on the laser? Why lasers and dismiss 1000’s of probable causes? You have a theory that starts with the fire and fill in the blank of what happens before? Motive for shooting California? These fires occur every year, even before lasers. What about those fires? Do you have to have direct evidence they put them in space and make good on threats to use them to harass civil populations with them? This whole thing isn’t even on theme of the news article written.

We aren’t in a post nuclear age because the weapons are a deterrent. The post nuclear weapon age will be when this deterrence no longer works or they are used. If one country is foolish enough not to be deterred and use them, we will be entering the post nuclear weapons era, but not its fallout.

Russia and China would be right for developing anti satellite weapons. US has been the initiator of tensions in space. During Bush’s presidency he claimed space US domain. Trump not helping matters by creating a silly space force. The space force was previously floated around too. China tested a anti satellite missile soon after. Both China and Russia’s official policy is non militarization of space and propose international agreements on it. The US has the most military satellites in space as of now so they have the most to fear, but the largest spying and communication infrastructure in space.

don’t underestimate what weapons may already be available that can the be put in satelites
the Chinese have a, laser gun ZKZM-500 that can put people in flames from 800 mrs
the laser beam you can not see they could have quite big lasers in airplanes like C17 and put things on fire from 5 or 10 kms up and nobody would see that
we just don’t know what exactly they have

It’s also not worthwhile to be overly glib regarding technology. For example, there are atmospheric optical windows for various wavelengths (such as IR), and IR lasers can be fairly efficient. The big power source in space is sunlight. Using optical pumping and solar reflectors could provide 100’s of kW or more. Yes – there are technical problems of all kinds, but there are smart people working on these problems with huge budgets. It is not reasonable to blow off weapon technology ideas with simplistic science arguments. It should also be clear that the dream of every empire is to have technological superiority to such an extent that resistance is not practical.

Since it happened, I studied this very subject in almost all my waking hours. Talked to people, looked at the pictures, reports, blogs…everything I could find. In my view, it was not some natural disaster. Beyond any doubt, something very fishy and genocidal took place over there. In fact, if one would look at all the evidence available out there, it is impossible to come to any other conclusion but the one stated above – it was mass murder! One doesn’t even have to connect it to agenda 21 (which is not even contested, or disputed by anyone). People evaporated in their cars?!…In their homes?!…With the trees and fences mostly standing untouched?!…Among those are communities that are opposed to smart metering (radiation), highest amount of home schooling etc, etc.

This takes me to the Sakers analysis. One cannot reason with the parasitic entities currently occupying the Western societies. These creatures don’t care that their “own” population could be buried in this war. This would be their exact goal. They don’t care about any industrial damages – because there is almost nothing left anyway. I think the parasites already found another host. They just want to incinerate as many people as possible and the evidence of past crimes. That is the only reasonable conclusion I can come to.

Saker ~~~
Israel-USA-EU are in total denial.
Bolton is clearly completely in charge, of how out of touch, the true Axis of Evil is.
Send in the get ready cosmic reality enema.
There is no such possibility of stopping the parasite from killing its host.
Earth Mother shall renew.
The most ignorant humans cannot be enlightened.
All life forms had best prepare for moron Bolton to do again what he has already done.

Calm, rational exposition of the Military Status Quo amid the schizoid geo-fantasies of the Exceptional USA.

Russia can kill the USA two ways, conventional or nuclear.

Russia can dismantle any land threat to Russia by the US (via Ukraine, the Baltics or Caucasuses).

In the High Noon showdown, in Syria and Eastern Med, Russia has already prevailed.
The US and its nearest and dearest partner in hegemony, Israel, have found themselves virtually grounded by Russian technology, S-400, S-300 and EW systems.

Operating the war in Syria, upgrading the Syrian Armed Forces, integrating with Hezbollah, Quds Force, Iranian militias, Iraqi PMF militias, and the use of Russian PMCs have demonstrated the vast superior strategic and logistical skills of the Russian Generals. The Russian Aerospace performance with a tiny number of attack planes and fighter jets and some helos operated at an efficiency and duration and sortie totals that astounded the US CENTCOM.

Russia has proved its technology and military mastery in Syria. The world’s experts from the largest militaries have observed the performance and results and low cost.

The US is leaving with its tail between its legs.

As Saker has tried to penetrated the iron dome-heads of DC with this article, the Russians have been attempting to convince the US leadership that Russia is for real and won’t back down in Syria, Ukraine or face-to-face for all the marbles and chips.

The US battle internally, “the war among the elites”, as Putin, Lavrov and Russian analysts describe the daily show against Trump and his MAGA voters, is hiding the imminent danger of swaggering across common sense zones of separation and terminating pipelines of communication between leaders of both nations and the militaries and diplomatic corps.

No winners will survive the catastrophe of war.

Hope that Trump can outlast the onslaught and wrestle power from the war-lovers and Russophobes.
There are damn few other Americans in office or the military command structure who have a scintilla of sense or realization of the enemy they chose to provoke. Russia does not fear war. They know exactly how to fight this enemy who pokes them.

Mattis cried. Bolton and Pompeo have said nothing. These are dangerous times in Washington.
The war-lovers can do what they did in 1963. They have Pence in place and all decisions can be reversed swiftly. Hegemony abhors Peace.

There are things Russia cannot influence. American stupidity, arrogance and hubris could make a fatal mistake.

We can understand not only the reason for the vilification of Russia (and China), under the massive propaganda agency under the empire, but also the manner of the vilification.

Clearly, the internal* corruption, and competition among rival power-mongering affiliations, for implementation of policy favouring their group, over other groups, has situationally eclipsed consideration of ‘foreign‘ threat.

*internal: while the 0.1% are comparatively free of most jurisdictional constraints in-place to restrict options for the 99%, and thus maintain them in a more controllable state, they are ‘internal’ to such an extent as there are jurisdictions with distinct societal models which do, in any way, constrain their free mobility and ability to exercise their will free of constraints governing the 99% (i.e. unlimited ‘purchasing‘ power and virtually accountability-free); societal models with even slightly more robust ‘central executive control‘ i.e Russia and China.

Again, it is comparatively simple to understand the behaviours of the empire, by temporarily using their value-structure and hyper-situational adaptability:
a. win or burn all
b. situationally adapt to target the actual prime rivals for ‘winning‘, by focusing on that rivalry, requires active demotion of the wider plethora of rivals to achieve the extremist-like focus

The relevance of the ‘external rivalries were necessarily, but contrived to enable this focus.
Since China and Russia were cognitively ‘contained‘ the preponderance of the competing power-mongering affiliations have been focused on consolidating control of blocks of the policy creating and implementing agencies in the societies of the empire in order to better loot the citizenry.
Their most cost-effective option in maintaining the necessary ignorance (of the 99%) has emerged to be the existing and emerging capability to effectively control the perceptions of the 99%.
Thus the predictability of the neurotic, bi-polaresque messaging in the propaganda agency (MSM et al.)
Also, predictability of the… spasmodic, again, bi-polareque presentation of policy decisions, and the almost completely random correlation of all policy announcements to actual policy implementation/outcomes.

I’m not sure your inference of Trump as a meaningful determinant of policy pronouncements, let alone policy implementations (“… Trump can outlast the onslaught and wrestle power from …”), is valid.
We can see a very clear trend supporting the supposition of Trump as decision-incapable in terms of validating policy directives and/or enforcing policy implementation(s). (perhaps ‘the wall’ may fall within a small number of implementation primes, that he is really willing to work toward with potentially limited associated outcomes).

I want to believe the Saker’s suggestion that the (admittedly intimidating, but largely due to their difficult-to-deny aesthetic gorgeousness) TU-160 modernized variants ‘visit’ to Venezuela is directed for constructive purposes to get the 99% thinking (at least a little bit) about what is really going on.
One can see that there is a mass cognitive restlessness among the 99%; I believe that this is due to the cognitive dissonance resulting from the steady diet of obviously internally inconsistent empire propaganda narrative streams.

Like a forest of minds, parched by years of coherent information drought, small sparks carry weighty risks.

I think Thierry-Meyssan would agree with this.
“Why Did the US Decide to Leave Syria?”http://www.voltairenet.org/article204433.html
Per Meyssan, with the deployment of the Russian automization system for identifying targets (I’m sure I have this jargon wrong, but it is something like that) the USAF could no longer cover for infantry on the ground. Locked out of the skies, so to speak.

…And as usual, we have not even mentioned the elephant in the room yet, the S-500’s capable of taking out most of US ‘s nukes before they reach mainland Russia. No wunderwaffe yes yes we know but still….

Vince Dhimos over on New Silk Strategies asks the question, What was in the AN-124 that visited Venezuela with the TU 160s and the Il-62? Vince speculates it may have been an S-400 system. Whatever, there must have been something big in that huge aircraft – and important, if it couldn’t wait for a cargo ship to deliver it.

In the miserable state of Venezuelan economy, it is more likely the plane was loaded with toilet paper.
Or just paper for printing their currency, since it is inflated over one million percent, and a truckload of bills is necessary to buy half a chicken.

Venezuelan oil wells are located deep underground. How much does it cost to get the wanted oil out? Add to that, Venezuelan oil has a high sulphur content which makes it only possible for a limited amount of refineries to handle it.

Tar sands may sound profitable, but are only in a limited way. An overall parameter for that is an energy factor, roughly like (energy delivered/exploitation energy). For Canadian tar sands that is roughly 1.4 (Btw, for solar cells this is roughly 1.1). A large part of the tar sands are at sea. Maybe the energy factor is lower than 1.4? And therefore the landscape has to be destroyed completely, and how do you take care of all kinds of hitchhiking heavy metals?

(These are ecological disasters. Like cute windenergy needs certain semiconductor materials like neodymium, which is exploited in China, polluting large areas with radioactive metals. Have we ever seen Greenpeace protesting? Maybe the statement of F. William Engdahl is true, that Greenpeace is an asset of the USA.)

My point in short is that oil reserves are just a number. Maybe Venezuela is a bit less rich in potential. But yes, when oil is involved the City of London awakes.

Rob: “These are ecological disasters. Like cute windenergy needs certain semiconductor materials like neodymium, which is exploited in China, polluting large areas with radioactive metals. Have we ever seen Greenpeace protesting? Maybe the statement of F. William Engdahl is true, that Greenpeace is an asset of the USA.”

“Wind energy is not nearly as “clean” and “good for the environment” as the wind lobbyists want you to believe. The wind industry is dependent on rare earth minerals imported from China, the procurement of which results in staggering environmental damages. As one environmentalist told the Daily Mail, “There’s not one step of the rare earth mining process that is not disastrous for the environment.” That the destruction is mostly unseen and far-flung does not make it any less damaging [..]

Big Wind’s Dependence on China’s “Toxic Lakes”: The wind industry requires an astounding amount of rare earth minerals, primarily neodymium and dysprosium, which are key components of the magnets used in modern wind turbines [..]

To quantify this in terms of environmental damages, consider that mining one ton of rare earth minerals produces about one ton of radioactive waste, according to the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. In 2012, the U.S. added a record 13,131 MW of wind generating capacity. That means that between 4.9 million pounds (using MIT’s estimate) and 6.1 million pounds (using the Bulletin of Atomic Science’s estimate) of rare earths were used in wind turbines installed in 2012. It also means that between 4.9 million and 6.1 million pounds of radioactive waste were created to make these wind turbines [..]”

do your research:the core of the so called “opposition” are local judeo-zionists.they are just executing the orders of their tribal “collective” entity in order,at medium run,swallow the whole country.

Nonsense. Venezuela is under absurd sanctions, boycott, media lies, and many other threats from the US… They are indeed trying to destroy the country and their Bolivarian sovereignty. The US does not like any country that challenges their imperialism, and is doing all they can to destroy Venezuela and, with it, all Latin American struggle for sovereignty – after all, they consider us to be their ‘backyard’.

I am surprised with Larchmonter445 comment and with those that promptly support it – they are irrelevant to DRing’s comment. It is hard to believe this comment was written by the same Larchmonter445 that made some good observations before, in other articles… What has changed, Larchmonter445? You seem to be angry with the possibility raised by DRing that ‘an S400’ or ‘something big’ may have been delivered in Venezuela…

mod-to note: Please do not use caps to emphasize. (Moderation Policy Rule #1)

My thoughts exactly, and I think it was the ’Exceptional and Indispensable’ poison which caught hold of him. Other US contributors here with progressive credentials have thrown hissy fits at the DPRK and Iran on similar grounds.

US progressives have great difficulties dispensing with their national superiority complex.

Thanks for your support MC. I enjoy The Saker blog and this was my first post. I rather hoped I would be adding something to the discussion regarding options for placing Russian strategic weapons in the US ‘backyard.’ I know everyone thinks their post is the biggest and brightest, but I think ‘newbies’ can be deflated in an encouraging way.

So was Serbia during the hyperinflation of 1992 – 1994 (add to that: state dismemberment sponsored by the West). Dragoslav Avramovic was the newly appointed central banker, who introduced the “super dinar” which ended hyperinflation overnight.

There are lots of smart Venezuelan economists out there. Maduro just has to appoint someone with a mandate for currency stability/new currency introduction. Of course this would pull the plug on his racketeering cronies who are getting rich off state….perhaps there’s more than just incompetence at play..

The existence of sanctions cannot be the only explanation for the failed government.

Maduro is not a good administrator of the state (pretty much in bankrupt with 25% deficit). His cabinet is full of mixed, confused and very much deteriorated people with marxist ideology. He has downplayed de average wage into less than 100 dollars a month including the great oil workers, talking a lot about the Revolution, the very same one wich with Chavez lift them above the 400 dollars. For example it is unacceptable than having water services problems he has to create a new ministry with a lot more bureocracy crafted there, and of course for no help or actual work.

I repeat, as a very venezuelan living and enduring since the 90s, than this is a failed government that puts in risk the fabric of the contry, of its territory and people, that can only find excuses in the sanctions and even the venezuelan people. Some whiny maniacs that are in office, they are all saints and everibody else are devils, including little and microcompanies,and the poor. They nurtured the hiperinflation and keep on it, They dont know about economy and everithyng they do ends up as a waste of time, capital, energy and resources.

These alliances with the Russian state only makes for the inability of our defense forces against US and its stooges, Brazil, Guyana and Colombia.

Venezuela’s economic problems have nothing to do with managerial inability. Much less with the suggestion that the “…cabinet is full of mixed, confused and very much deteriorated people with Marxist ideology.” This is a blatant ideological charge, removed from the findings that an unbiased and deeper analysis of the problem would reveal.

Venezuela has many enemies: inside and outside. The local mainstream media controlled by the opposition accuses the government of everything that goes wrong: hyperinflation, lack of know-how, ‘wastes’, ‘too much bureaucracy’, etc., etc., never realising that the Venezuelan plight is a result of sanctions, threats, boycotts, etc. for being ‘the defiant sheep in the backyard’ of the US empire.

Moreover, to accuse the government for the present low incomes is pure hypocrisy – the elite would never pay fair incomes to the workers. The Venezuelan workers know this as President Chavez was frank about it. President Maduro surely reminds the workers about the danger, as well. This is the reason why they have not fallen into the trap of making a ‘colour revolution’ against their government, against their own interests, despite the unrelenting propaganda against the government.

Why is it that economic and information wars are always waged against those countries that adopt socialism or just independence from imperialism?

The brutal economic war against Venezuela only demonstrate that the imperialist fears the development that its independence – that is, its NON-subordination to imperialism – would bring to the country, and that the Venezuelan success would, as a result, serve as an example for the rest of Latin America. As Russia, Venezuela has not been able to fully develop its potential – they have both been victims of sanctions, boycotts, etc. and what they need is just exactly what the opposition fears the most: they need to unite militarily against those that are opposing their freedom to develop economically, barring once and for all the looting of their resources and people by the imperialists.

Serbian girl “There are lots of smart Venezuelan economists out there. Maduro just has to appoint someone [..]”

He could hire Ecuador ex-president Rafael Correa, since he’s sitting around now with nothing to do. He has a Master of Science in Economics and a PhD in Economics. Alternatively, he could ask Michael Hudson for some help, he advised the people of Iceland on how to get their act together and look at them now!

The US elites are like the dog in Mikhail Bulgakows “A Dog’s Heart” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_a_Dog ;-)
Created by western culture and science, nothing more than an arrogant, dump and mean beast who only looks like an human being. It is time to have a new operation and make it a decent dog under the table again.
I’m afraid only, that the creators long ago lost control of this one.

Paul, whose name, I think?, translates from German to “shark” in English – Paul’s heart is far better…but the scifi dog in the film is named “shark”… Literature of naming – a way to define a theme…

Fun movie, in a dark way…from long ago. Very few Americans, alas, can or do, read… Poor people, they live and pass as helpless fools, and do not know it. The “elite” don’t read either, they however, are worse than fools, they are devils and don’t know it. Like sharks?

That’s unfair to the fish…

mod-to note: Going off topic – please move further discussion on this thread to the Moveable Feast Cafe.

Many thanks for the great article. I have a question. You state that “Russia has a wide choice of conventional weapons, ranging from hypersonic ballistic missiles to long-range cruise missiles”. So, essentially, it doesn’t have to come down to a nuclear exchange. Ok, but once the bird is in the air flying towards the US, how does NORAD distinguish a conventional missile from one equipped with a nuclear warhead? I am struggling with this question.

The bird flying will be in response to what the US has done prior or is trying to do.

For instance, if they allowed the Poles to strike Kaliningrad. The US might feel the counter-strike in Key West, Florida.

Most likely, there exists counter-targets that would be equal to losses of Russian locations that might be struck first.

War is calculated madness.

Certainly, if Tartus Naval Base or Hmeimim AFB had been hit by those Tomahawks, the US would have lost a base in the region. Wherever the weapons used were launched or were commanded from.

So, there would be a 20-30 minute conventional exchange. Russia does not have to go nuclear in order to punish a significant loss or large attack. They have weapons of scale that are conventional.

They are speaking about them for any attack on Crimea, Kerch, Donbass or along the Ukie border with Russia.
Shoigu and Lavrov and Russian Generals have all mentions Iskander missiles which can be either conventional or nuclear, and missiles from jets and attack helicopters. Ukie-NATO forces will be destroyed with large scale conventional tactical weapons.

You cannot distinguish a nuclear from a conventional warhead with any degree of certainty. However, in the case of Russian cruise missiles, NORAD won’t detect anything anyway, so the US national command will find out what hit the target (say Tampa) by the explosion at which point it will be immediately obvious whether it was a nuclear or a conventional warhead.
But your point is well taken: it is very dangerous to shoot ANY kind of missiles even in the general vicinity of the US (or Russian) mainland or forces.
HTH, cheers,
The Saker

In the early 1960’s I trained with “museum weapons” built in 1914, 8mm Mauser rifles. The very accurate 200grain slugs could hit a beer can at >600 meters with V = 2,800 fps). Dead by museum piece is still dead.Same same with an axe…

About the old Carrier > Running a ship engine system based on oil and steam creates, from time to time, soot blows…smoke.

Inexperienced crews unfamiliar with the equipment tend to produce more and bigger soot events, blows. There are devices in the boilers called “soot blowers”… One calls the bridge to get permission to blow… (if procedure is followed ;) )

My old pals include many USN “snipes”…they used to fill the overpressure relief pipes (between atmosphere and the safety valve) with panties and bras – then blow the relief and close the dampers – on purpose, as they went under the Golden Gate…thus blackening the steel bridge with soot and festooning it with ladies underwear. It’s funny when a new “tough guy” skipper comes on board and tries to whip the engine department into shape. After awhile either the skipper understands how things are, or the skipper is replaced… Snipes own the ship. It’s the physics.

One assumes, ahemm, that modern Ivans have a similar sense of humor, but perhaps better discipline. I mean, in the present case, Ivan understands how deadly affairs are… My pals were free to fool around.

VVP’s dad was a submariner in Soviet Navy. That alone says do not challenge his kid. The Gods do not make tougher guys than these.

The US submarine guys I have known are good, but I hold my opinion about the officers…those with whom I have worked did not favorably impress me. Indeed they seemed to believe in magic…

Indeed i am one, a parrhesiastes. And anybody can take trouble to check on facts. You are correct that the museum piece rifle does precisely this. So does the copy, the smaller US 30.06. So does a .22 magnum.

Speaking as such, you are imprecise about the M number. This number varies according to conditions, temperature, gas mix, density, etc

Mach changes. V @ exit from tube does not. It is expressed in V/d in any handy unit…inches, furlongs…whatever

We used to pump the old 8mm up to 3,000 +. with 27 inch tubes. The German actions are plenty strong.

Nowadays I do not keep guns – they were part of my youth and education as a cadet on track to become an officer…which I rejected with together with the criminal attack and occupation of Vietnam. The prospect of being ensnared in war crime was simply intolerable. I am far too old to shoot anybody, and too poor to buy ammunition, and of course, live in a police state.

parrhesiastes, those figures on the power of ordinary hand guns are awesome. Take your first example: a little bullet weighing 11.7 gram (less than 1/2 an ounce) carries 2,900 foot pound of energy. I weigh about 145 lb; so that little bullet could lift me 20 feet into the air (2,900 / 145 = 20).

And here we are talking about conventional missiles which carry much, much more energy than little hand slugs; and move on to talking about nuclear missiles with 1000 times more energy still. Until now I had never realised the amount of sheer energy (capable of doing useful work) that is locked up in ammunition.

A CPO from the RN training me in the RAN, said that there are three “Gods of War”, boats (to the uninitiated submarines), artillery (including MRLS) and mines (being naval we are talking sea-mines).

There are only two types of vessels – boats and targets.

The Red Army proved that artillery is a “God of War”.

Mines are the only weapon that I can think of, that doesn’t have to be deployed to work. Merely stating that you’ve laid a minefield closes that section of water until a thorough MCM exercise is conducted. Remember, every ship is a minesweeper – once!

Herewith a perceptive insight on the Russian trip to Venezuela by Vince Dhimos :
In the above video, from RT, you can see 2 transporter-erector-launchers (TELs) with 4 missiles each and the accompanying radar-electronics vehicle being off-loaded from an An-124 of the kind that was sent to Venezuela. If this amount of air defences has been sent to that country, it would represent half of the shipment that Syria received this year, enough to instill due respect in the Pentagon. More equipment may come at any time.
I do not pretend to be clairvoyant, or to have special powers enabling me to see behind the news. On the other hand, I have a very suspicious mind and I remembered that the S-300 system was sent to Syria in An-124s (see above video). I also note that all of four aircraft were sent to Venezuela, one of which was an Il-62. I further note that An-124s and Il-62s both participated in the shipment of the S-300 air defences to Syria. Since the Il-62 is a passenger plane, we might suppose that it transported the air defence/EW specialists to that destination.http://www.newsilkstrategies.com/military-affairs/the-strange-news-blackout-onthe-russian-aircraft-shipment-to-venezuela

Well, I didn’t see the article or the video until now, but I instantly fixed on the AN124 & IL62 as very odd “escorts” for the Tu-160s. (I said so at Unz, but nobody paid it any mind).
It made no sense.
A couple of fighters? Exactly what would be expected, especially for a “show of force/capability”.
Lumbering, defenceless cargo and passenger aircraft? Laughable.

Clearly, the purpose of the trip was the inverse of what was reported. The Tu-160s were PR decoys for a shipment of war materiel and personnel. That the press missed it simply indicates that the misdirect worked. The White Swans diverted attention from the real shipment because “Long-range, super-sonic, strategic (nuclear) heavy bomber!” trumps boring Antonovs and Ilyushins in the MSM’s hyperbolic headline wars.

Anyway, Maduro was in Moscow the week prior, signing “strategic” agreements. The agreements must have concerned matters of some urgency, as delivery was arranged immediately. There’s also strong rumours of Russia taking a position, if not a full blown base, on Venezuela’s La Orchila island. Perhaps these two events aren’t unconnected.

This event reminds me of the sort of stories we were reading through the summer of 2015 as Latakia and Khmeimim were being re-fitted for war. All of them missed the point, and all were caught flat-footed when the Russians went live on Sept 30.

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn come March or April that La Orchila sports a full-blown Russian coastal defence base nobody saw coming. If so, and if the USM misses this one as badly as they missed Crimea and Syria, will what’s left of their credibility survive?

Quoting from a commentator (common ‘tater):
“There are things Russia cannot influence. American stupidity, arrogance and hubris could make a fatal mistake.”

I am often in contact with “average” Americans who are, like the neo-cons and their ilk, stupid, arrogant and full of hubris. They have been dumbed down to the point that nothing Russia does, or can do, cuts through their
belief in exceptionalism and a gawd-given right to rule the world.

”They /the Pindos/ have been dumbed down to the point that nothing Russia does, or can do, cuts through their belief in exceptionalism and a gawd-given right to rule the world.”

To get the full picture, the key is to realize that the Pindo fantasy about being exceptional and indispensable is but an ideological frill of militant parasites. Pindos are an unbearable burden on the planet and they know it. Their material standards of living would drop enormously without the proceeds of imperialism, and they are in such an abysmal state as a people that they have zero chance of survival, so they prefer to hold on to the untenable status quo.

Nuss: Not all of us ‘Pindos’ are so unaware. Some of us, particularly on the coasts, are actually scared, but powerless to do much. I myself live within 50 miles of the nuclear base in Washington State, and only 20 miles south of a major Army-Air Force base there. Glad my kids are far away. No matter who is President, he or she scares the s”t out of me right now. Putin is probably one of the wisest persons on the planet in my book.

Don’t know what to make of this assessment, really. To me, it sounds as some kind of very misplaced consolation for undeserving Pindos. Would be a vast improvement to have it re-phrased as per below:

The USA is totally undefended because the scum in charge — rightfully — are seething with hatred, contempt, and disgust regarding the US majority population; the latter very far from being perceived as any Exceptional and Indispensable breed. Let it enjoy the tender loving care, compassion, and patriotism of its superiors while sinking deeper and deeper.

Furthermore, Russia clearly is menacing mainland US, although not in accordance with the gangster hype of Pindo psychopathology.

I fully agree with The Saker that the arrival of the TU-160 bombers in Venezuela was a psychological wake up call to the US public, the US establishment included.

I have been watching the situation for years, and the attitude in the US is that US weapon systemas are “superior” to anything Russian made. For example, when the TU-160’s arrived in Venezuela, it was reported they were old planes, while at the same time it was ignored that the US B-52’s were built in the 1950’s (according to one source, about a dozen of them were shot down in Vietnam, the Vietnamese using Russian SAM’s).

What is more dangerous than the nuclear weapons themselves is the fact that there are people in the US establishment who are of the opinion that Russia can be defeated in a sneak attack with minimal losses to the US. I sincerely hope that Pentagon generals do not share this opinion. However, the chief catalyst to a potential nuclear confrontation will be the state of Western finances and the enormous debt of Western countries. This debt can never be repayed. Fiat currencies cannot be printed eternally backed by nothing. The Western elites did not see their plans materialize for the break up and plunder of Russia. The question is what they are going to do now. We shall see.

The new Blackjack is expected to go into mass production in 2021, and therefore its full capabilities are still unknown.
But here’s what we know so far:
Russia unveiled the new Tu-160M2 White Swan — codenamed Blackjack by NATO — in November 2017.
It’s an upgrade to the Tu-160M

The new Tu-160M2’s full capabilities are still unknown, but other than keeping the same frame, it will reportedly be a much different aircraft.

It will reportedly have a new engine — four of the NK-32 02 series seen below — which will add 600 miles to its flying range.
The original engine on the Tu-160 — the NK-32 — is already a powerful engine, providing 55,000 lbs of thrust. The B-1B Lancer, on the other hand, only generates about 31,000 pounds of thrust.

“Even though on the outside it looks much like its predecessor, [the Tu-160M2] will be a whole new aircraft with a new fire control and navigation gear, advance system of electronic jamming, a new cockpit and more fuel-saving engines,”

Including improved inertial, satellite, and astro-navigation equipment. An active electronically scanned array radar will be to able to detect targets at longer ranges and with better accuracy.
It will also most likely be fitted with a new KRET defensive suite.

The new defensive suite might possibly have any combination of better infrared countermeasures, solid-state lasers, or beams of electromagnetic radiation to take out incoming missiles.

It is ridiculous to even address a silly comment about museum pieces. The US still uses mostly F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, B-1Bs, and B-52s. The first F-15 entered service in 1974. The first F-16 entered operational service in 1980. The F-18 released in 1978 and entered service around 1983. B-1B, the first production variant was in 1984. The B-52 has been in active service since 1955. I will add the F-22, first flight 1997 and entering service in 2005.

The so called relic, has entered operational service in 1987. Though, just like the B52s are modernized and rejuvenated with modern technology and extended service life. The Tupolev also has been sent to be entirely stripped down and modernized to the Tu-160M and now to the M2 standard. Not only that, they are producing NEW ones entirely.

So these type comments from media are full of trash and shouldn’t even be addressed. They wreak of hypocrisy and are not just beyond ignorant, but are flat out stupid.

”However, if the people of the USA realize that they don’t have any credible enemy, they might wonder why their country spends more on ’defense’ than the rest of the planet combined.”

Absolutely nothing of the sort. Firstly, there is, mind you, something called enemy consciousness which, in the case of the Pindos, encompasses all countries, peoples, and leaders around the planet, bar Israel. Are you suggesting that this doesn’t amount to a ”credible enemy” ? Secondly, if there is something the Pindos don’t have any noticeable problems grasping, it is the role their ’defense’ plays in propping up their wasteful, decadent lifestyles.

Absolutely nothing of the sort. Firstly, there is, mind you, something called enemy consciousness which, in the case of the Pindos, encompasses all countries, peoples, and leaders around the planet, bar Israel. Are you suggesting that this doesn’t amount to a ”credible enemy” ? Secondly, if there is something the Pindos don’t have any noticeable problems grasping, it is the role their ’defense’ plays in propping up their wasteful, decadent lifestyles.

Militant Parasites describes the United States of America in particular.

Or better yet, America is a nation of morbidly obese parasites who have an in-bred sense of economic entitlement, in which they believe they have a God-given birthright to live their decadent American Way of Life(tm) where they devour a disproportionate share of resources on this planet.

More pathetic, the Americans live in an upside reality and delude themselves that they are a Force for Good in the world who are threatened by “Evil-Doers” who hate our freedoms…. LOL.

The more American corporations rape and loot the world; the more America imposes its predatory brand of capitalism called the Washington Consensus; the more America economically sanctions other nations; the more America wages financial terrorism through its system of Dollar Imperialism…

the more the American victimizer tries to portray itself as the righteous “victim.”

This is the mental disease called American Exceptionalism.

This disease afflicts not only the American ruling class but also hordes of American citizens themselves.

”More pathetic, the Americans live in an upside-down reality and delude themselves that they are a Force for Good in the world who are threatened by ’Evil-Doers’ who hate our freedoms…. LOL.”

Actually and interestingly, this is where the mental rot in the West in general and the US in particular has begun to dent the ”prestige” of the preposterous Force for Good hogwash. To drug/violence/porn-addicted Westerners — with the Anglo-Americans as their proud vanguard — pure evil is what counts and should be outright recognized as such. Of course this calls for consequences with regard to how the non-Exceptional global majority is going to deal with them, eventually.

[to mods: I understand the policy of relevance of comment, but in the grander scheme of the underlying vision of the vineyard, pro-survival/sustainable human species and biosphere, I believe this comment is extremely relevant, and the article ultimately speaks to this topic; nonetheless, I am committed to what I believe to be your good faith, in managing the discussion] mod-to note: Seems to me your comment is written in the spirit of “Likbez”, psychologically speaking, and so it is appropriate.

In psychology, if I remember my flirtations with the basics, in university, correctly, there is a basic human tendency to filter and analyze (even validate) facts perceived through an internal, value-based, filtration system.
So people perceive actions of others by trying to place the observable facts into their own value-mechanics.

So it is as I read your article, and others by you, RU, PCR, and other warriors against enslavement of the minds of the citizens under the empire, we find a trend of disconnect, that is “no rational explanation” for the policy and observable behaviours of the prime individuals, agencies, and executive governance structures under the auspices of the empire.
That is on top of the oft-mentioned, accurate assessment of an executive branch which is negotiation-decision-incapable.
Of course, there is more than one reason for these defects in capability to perform ostensible purposes within society(ies); for example, it seems obvious that the empire has certainly fractured into internally competing power structures/affiliations, which compete and/or sell policy implementation for agendas which clearly lack any relationship with improved prospects for the vast majority of the citizenry.
This is on top of the fact that the ‘class’ of people ‘managing‘ the institutions and agencies under the empire are effectively alien in the world-view outlook, compared the 99% of the citizenry, based on the large differential between how the world works for the vast majority.

This is at the crux of the disconnect between the analysis of the rational, values*-anchored thinker.
* I should like to add here that the values inclusion in not necessarily a morally discriminatory determination, except where one of the values is for ultimate sustainability of civilization and the inherent phenomenal achievement outcomes of humanity; but I do mean to suggest that semi-stable values as differentiated from values more dominated by a relative or comparative moderation, i.e. situational intelligence kind of thing.

The Empire has, at the management level adopted a defacto prime-directive of winning over the survival of anybody.

Now where that came from is debatable (though probably illegal to debate in most sub-jurisdictions under the empire), but if you use this value, in evaluating the observable behaviours of the empire, one can quite clearly see the high consistency and, albeit at a lesser extent, but still remarkably predictable behaviours of the empire.

We need to be able to foster this understanding of the behaviours of the (defacto mean/average) controllership patterns governing the actions of the empire to be able to contribute to a re-establishment of any kind of representative policy making, hopefully more sustainable, to increase the survivability likelihood of the planet.

On the other side of the geopolitical equation, we can try to assess the observable policy outcomes from ‘the rivals’ Russia and China, using a bi-focal method, citizenry-rational-survival and ‘victory or burn‘ prime moral, and we find much better correlation with a citzenry-rational-survival based evaluation-prediction basis (even Iran for that matter).

So, the Saker’s evaluation of what I loosely paraphrase as a PR activity, aimed, one could argue, ‘constructively‘ at the citizenry under the empire’s prime jurisdiction, from the basis of a citzenry-rational-survival value set.

On the other side of the coin, we see a (MSM) media response which will almost certainly behave, as it is, under the now strained imposition of the controllership class’ neuotic-suicidal value-set, victory or burn all.

We are less delusional…they see us as threat, themselves? Gods or Devils… whatever…but they’re probably right, either they win or die…so they’re blackmailing the world’s people. Maybe they can, for awhile, but I doubt it will work in the long run…or with either Russia or China > they’ve been around long enough to see ’em come, an see ’em go…same for Persia…

Internal Imperial Fissures will ravel out the institutions of the West (as we see already) as the conditions deteriorate .

Their backs are to the sea, and Time tics as the Tide

Sun Tsu says the way to get a fight, to guarantee a fight, is to place an army with its back to the sea.

Everybody’s back is now to the sea. Them, Us, all, simply different oceans…but the tide of sans-culottes (as Paris etc shows) rises behind “them” while sometimes it floats “us”, eh? They have to hurry, we do not.

I’m not sure about “…Sheriff in Blazing Saddles …”.
I see it as closer to some kind of a neurotic insecurity driving a power obsession; the 50’s era western-movie ‘meme’ is an old branding clinging to legacy status by the most extreme ‘princes and princesses’ of all time, the western first-world industrialized baby-boomer, now expiring.
Now we have Byzantine-like imperial factionalization, again driven by a neurotic obsessive-compulsive impetus to acquire and wield power, blind to any outcome, by the very nature of the extreme obsessiveness.

And these types will initiate nuclear war; “win” at all costs, with the inability to see the ultimate lose-lose-lose-lose—…. immediate outcome.

I’m starting to think that Russia endgame should be to prepare the citizens for mass-migration, protect the armed forces, actual combat capability, and when the psycho-power-mongers, in their bubble reality light it up, retaliate with only non-nuclear armaments, then send the entire Russian population in to invade, because Eurasia will be uninhabitable, while North America will be, as mention by our host, in this article, not capable of defending the territory against a coherent, well-planned attack.

What do you think about that?!

agree that the frenchie’s are often in front of the style (n’est-ce pas?) and the yellow-vest movement is likely to spread…
… like a spark in a drought-stricken forest.

@ “I’m starting to think that Russia endgame should be..” I do have ideas about both Strategy and Tactics that, if I were Russian, I might moot. I have these ideas. For me these are obvious… I assume the many Russians are smarter than me, and also know the US very well. Mark Sleboda, for example, now a Russian Citizen. Ask Mark what he thinks…https://twitter.com/MarkSleboda1

I do not speak or write these ideas. I am an American, so I cannot. And would not. Perhaps that’s indirectly stating the nature of these ideas…you shall have to read the tea leaves, friend. I never attempt to start stuff that leads to disaster or uncontrolled outcome, not if I can avoid it.

Candidness is it’s own apology… Think about the word…

Russia is doing just fine without my help. Others have cast the die…Comrade Russel B, for one… I shall moulder away as an American that hopes for a Pacific and Just Outcome to the war. My wars are finished.

One Tribe: “The Empire has, at the management level adopted a defacto prime-directive of winning over the survival of anybody.”

You absolutely get it. Few understand it, and even fewer are brave enough and willing to see it as clearly as you do.

Winning is all, to these “people.” How they achieve it and at what cost – millions, even billions of lives lost – is of total irrelevance to them. Personally, I believe they don’t even care about their own survival, because if they don’t win, life is not worth living to them anyway. That’s the level of terminal derangement we’re talking about here.

Well, all you have to look at is the craziness that happened in Hawaii when that false alarm bomb scare was done. All in the US are sitting ducks, because some imbecile in DC wants to show how tough he is. And we pay the price. I’m reminded of scene from the Three Stooges, where Moe is telling a crowd, “We will fight to the last drop of…..”, points at Curly and finishes, “….your blood!”

Frankly, I doubt Russia would make any use of its weapons in a “demonstration mode” if NATO or the US were to directly engage the Russian military anywhere in the world. It would be pointless and dangerous.

Russia can send planes and ships and demonstrate its military capabilities against existing enemies like ISIS, and hope the US Pentagon – and US politicians – understands their effectiveness against anyone else. But if the US or NATO directly threatens Russian forces in Ukraine, Syria, or anywhere else, Russia will strike and strike hard to inflict measured but effective damage against those US or NATO forces.

We can only hope that once that occurs the US will not follow a path of escalation – or we’re all dead. Look at a map of US military targets in the US. There is absolutely no place that would be safe in the continental US except northern Nevada and some part of the Rocky Mountains. Every other state in the US has a serious military target – or several – which, if nuked, would send fallout over the rest of the state. The entire northeastern seaboard would be obliterated, as well as much of the western coastal region and much of the heartland. I know the original casualty estimates during the Cold War were around 50-100 million US dead. Today that figure is probably closer to 200 million, although I haven’t seen any official estimates. But with the increased yield, multiple MIRV warheads, and size of the nuclear arsenals, I can’t imagine any fewer than that. Follow that by the total collapse of food and water resources, and not even “preppers” are going to survive the resulting decades-long chaos.

And there’s nothing the US electorate can do to stop it because they have zero control over their politicians or the Deep State.

I LOL’d out loud at the stupid comment about museum pieces. What a dickhead; and someones paying this idiot a salary!!

I doubt the US could send a couple of strategic bombers and heavy lift planes on a 10k journey and back. Remember, the invasion of Iraq (not exactly a peer force) – it took 6 months of build-up, and a “coalition of the willing”.

Even though my father is long dead, I can’t repeat what he thought of US troops during the campaign in N Africa during WW2.

I was hoping that some mention of the Nuclear War discussion from the most recent edition of Putin’s Annual Meeting would appear in Saker’s discourse or by commentators. Alas, it’s left to me to bring this to light and inform the uninformed.

The following I believe to be a specifically planted “question” referencing the Outlaw US Empire’s withdrawal from the INF Treaty because of the clue within. Recall that millions of people globally watched or later read this discourse, most certainly the Empire’s spies:

“Anton Vernitsky: Mr President, as Soviet-era children, all of us feared a nuclear war very much. As you remember, various songs dealt with this issue. One of them had the following lyrics: “Sunny world: Yes, yes, yes; nuclear explosion: No, no, no.”

“Vladimir Putin: Are you not afraid today?

“Anton Vernitsky: Forty years have passed [The Clue], and major media outlets on both sides of the ocean are beginning to publish a scenario for a nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States. The word “war” is sounding more and more often at household level, in kitchens.

“Mr President, how can you calm down my little son who, just like me, also fears a nuclear war today? What words and actions can calm us all down?

“Vladimir Putin: You know, I think you are right.

“I just thought that all this, including the danger of such developments in the world, is now being hushed up and played down to some extent. It seems impossible or something that is not so important. At the same time, if, God forbid, something like this happens, it might destroy the whole of civilisation or perhaps the entire planet.

“These issues are therefore serious, and it is a great pity that there is such a tendency to underestimate the problem, and that this tendency is probably becoming more pronounced. What are the current distinguishing features and dangers?

“First, all of us are now witnessing the disintegration of the international system for arms control and for deterring the arms race. This process is taking place after the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty that, as I have already noted a thousand times, was the cornerstone in the sphere of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and deterring the arms race.

“After that, we were forced to respond by developing new weapons systems that could breach these ABM systems. Now, we hear that Russia has gained an advantage. Yes, this is true. So far, the world has no such weapons systems. Leading powers will develop them, but, as yet they do not exist.

“In this sense, there are certain advantages. But, speaking of the entire strategic balance, this is just an element of deterrence and for equalising parities. This is just the preservation of parity, and nothing more.

“They are now about to take another step and withdraw from the INF Treaty. What will happen? It is very difficult to imagine how the situation will unfold. What if these missiles show up in Europe? What are we supposed to do then?

“Of course, we will need to take some steps to ensure our safety. And they should not whine later that we are allegedly trying to gain certain advantages. We are not. We are simply trying to maintain the balance and ensure our security.

“The same goes for the START III Treaty, which expires in 2021. There are no talks on this issue. Is it because no one is interested, or believes it is necessary? Fine, we can live with that.

“We will ensure our security. We know how to do it. But in general, for humanity, this is very bad, because this takes us to a very dangerous line.

“Finally, there is another circumstance I cannot ignore. There is a trend to lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. There are plans to create low-impact nuclear charges, which translates to tactical rather than global use. Such ideas are coming from Western analysts who say it is okay to use such weapons. However, lowering the threshold can lead to a global nuclear disaster. This is one danger we are facing today.

“The second is the use of non-nuclear ballistic missiles. True, our US partners seem to have dropped this idea, but it still exists. What does it mean?

“Suppose, a ballistic missile is launched, nuclear or non-nuclear. The missile attack warning system identifies the launch and the launch site, and, seconds later, determines the flight path and the possible warhead landing area. This is all on the verge of a possible error. It is terrible, and we cannot take it that far. Nevertheless, such an idea of using non-nuclear ballistic missiles exists.

“Suppose, a submarine fired a ballistic missile from the World Ocean, but who the hell knows if it is nuclear or not, go figure. This is very dangerous. All of that is being widely discussed, which is dangerous.

“However, I believe humanity has enough common sense and enough of a sense of self-preservation not to take these things to the extreme.”

Note that Saker channeled some of Putin into his discourse, but I don’t think Putin’s words satisfied the request to “calm” the boy’s fears, aside from saying we are doing all we can. As usual, lots of information is conveyed in this meeting making it well worth the time to read the transcript or watch the video, which is available at the above link.

More and more we see that the greatest threat to humanity is actually the information wars which rage, largely secretively, for the minds of humanity.

We see a schism happening, literally as we discourse the topic.

So, this topic, graciously brought to us to discuss by our host, “Likbez” is profoundly germane!

This is the real war which is underway, for without the profound capabilities to manage the perceptions of the citizens, the activities of the ‘alien‘ 0.1% power-mongering elite will be exponentially more difficult to implement.

Without the new profound capabilities created with the mobile-device matrix technology, the metaphorical house of cards of the mainstream media ridiculous narrative webs would be comparatively easy to undermine.

Unfortunately, the new technology, and associated capability, which creates a Matrix-like perception-control network (anyone who is wired in can potentially be an ‘agent’).

Where does that leave us?
1. identifying activities within the decision-making capability of people, to minimize/mitigate the control capability, and the development of strategies and operational methods to take the decisions to ‘protect themselves from perception-control techniques.

what is the true essentialness of the smartphone usage/ownership?

certainly it seems a useful tool…
(I have never had one, and intend on never having one)
… but at what cost?

I am reminded of, what has come to be, my perception of the strategic objectives of Russia, maintaining their own sovereign territory and their own sovereign determination.

Which I think is very reasonable.

To all members of our little oasis of connect beached submarines, I suggest the analogy to the global citizen individual, maintaining one’s own sovereign determination.

At what cost is the integration of a smart device to one’s own sovereign determination?!

We need to use this rare biological thinking system of beached submarine commanders to create means of emancipating the minds of the global citizens, otherwise all will be undone.

Saker: your idea of the “wake up” demonstration is brilliant example of thinking outside the box. In this age of internet news still available in the USA such an exercise will be seen one way or another. Most people who are serious check out Drudge report and cruise by Infowars plus have other news blog sources as well as RT World etc

Hi dear Saker,
All the west needs is patiently help nudge in the atlanticists in power in Russia or at least help them keep the Russian camp divided and paralyzed, and keep control over the Russian central bank and media; and all Russian military hardware would be useless.
What good is your analysis if you don’t take this aspect into consideration.
Thanks

Good article. Add to the planned US provocations against Russia an actual one. In the late 40s-50s Eisenhower sent 100 US bombers to fly over Russia. Apparently all were shot down. 200 US airmen needlessly lost their lives due to Eisenhower’s megalomania. It is only around 6 years ago that the US admitted to this overflight. and the airmens’ families were never told the truth.
Eisenhower assumed Russia was too weak after WW2 to respond, so he could overfly with impunity even at a low level. Russian however still had ts formidable air defence in position….
I do not recall that the US bombers were on a first-strike mission, only a photographic recon pre-strike…nevertheless a blatant breach of Russias sovereignty…

I this this is an inaccurate idea. The US flew many intel flights, but never “sent 100 bombers”.

Some intel flights were shot down. My informed opinion (I have spoken with close blood relatives who few at least a few of those missions and were not shot down) is that fewer than a dozen, probably fewer than 5, were shot down/forced down/lost otherwise.

Intelop aircraft are unarmed, generally, and carry electronics and cameras… They can be externally indistinguishable from armed craft – at least to cursory examination. This was the case for B47 aircraft, but obviously not the case with U2. Tactical use involves, sometimes, fighter aircraft with cameras…they may or may not have any weapons.

In our day they use sexy model airplanes…cheaper, better, less provocative. One assumes that all the armies will now invent giant shot-guns…with electronics to aim at said toys, and their bigger brothers. Skeet-shooting comes to mind…”pull!…got’im!, beers!”

If the US had sent 100 bombers the USSR would, one expect, have closed the roads to Berlin, permanently…and after that? It did not happen.

It does look like some of the funny-business with intelops was designed to “ratphuk” (note, Mod, is crude term ok in context?) dialogue that promoted a pacific modus vivendi between the Soviet and Imperial realms…the Francis Gary Powers affair against Ike’s “open sky”, for example. Others, using airliners, such as Korea Air, may have been designed to arrange the “liquidation by Soviet actions” of inconvenient people – people the deep state wanted gone. MH17 comes here to mind too.

These “provocations” cannot be seen as stand-alone. They are skirmish. Not provocation.

Thinking about vague conversations over the years; of one type or another, discussing the ‘eventualities’, if you will, of the ‘war of the future’; the megalomania of armageddon. It seems there is a third factor (and probably ten more), beyond just: we are good and they are bad; our weapons are better, their’s are worse. This is the irrefutable ‘education’ of the self-expert co-conspiracy types; the ones who love to talk about the latest top-secret metube revelations of spacewar, cyberwar, mindwar, etc. —‘ we have huge armories of ballistic Robert Heinlein projectiles on the moon-bases’; ‘we have Jack London, Chinese pandemics in spades, just biding time ‘till doomsday’; ‘we have Gene Rod-n-berries, matter/anti-matter bomb (greater than ten-thousand ‘cobalt’ bombs) ready to blow away half the planets atmosphere’: and this is only the stuff they can tell us about.
The list is not short, of ultra-topsecret noobtoob vids; all surely at least half real. Those who buy into this, also buy into every other fake creation, but may not admit it consciously.

Those are probably Hollywood productions not actual weapons, does the USA look like a country that can actually keep secret weapons, well, secret?If the Americans had anymore weapons than what they’ve already used, they would have used them already.

“In no event are we considering any kind of military action that would involve boots on the ground, that would involve a long-term campaign. But we are looking at the possibility of a limited, narrow act that would help make sure that not only Syria, but others around the world, understand that the international community cares about maintaining this chemical weapons ban and norm. So again, I repeat, we’re not considering any open-ended commitment. We’re not considering any boots-on-the-ground approach.”

Not sure what to make of this link. The only possibility that the narrator entertains is that it is The Russians!!!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AauaPRgREJY&t=4s it could just as well be gaslighting, or if real perhaps preparation for a coup, as in the Bay of Pigs.

If it actually is some kind of base, using fitbits as a means to telegraph its existence would be a clever tactic, provided that secrecy is maintained up to that point.

Thanks, Saker, for your brave article, which I pray will wake some more good people up. For everyone who commented, thank you for your insights on some other very troubling recent developments as well.

I particularly note your comment : “I don’t know whether the people making these statements really believe them or not, but the resulting policy is one of a total and never-ending hostility mixed in with a quasi-religious belief in the superiority and even invulnerability of the “collective West.” And this is precisely the kind of mindset which results in stupid and bloody wars!”
Speaking of religious belief, I am afraid that The Goal of many people who profess to be “Americans” and “Christians” is nothing less than the demonical destruction of the Orthodox Church, along with Mother Russia. They want Russia to end very badly. Take this very seriously, this is a religious war, and it will be a fight to the death, tragically. Their “Christian soldiers” will assuredly ignore the commandment which says “you shall not kill”, and substitute “do what thou wilt” instead. Hardly the words of Jesus.
I fear most organized religions.

This interesting article from the Saker raises important questions: Does the west really plan to start a full-scale war with Russia? If not, what are the doing with the endless threats and propaganda?

Here is a thought: Could it be that they plan to start and continue a low-grade skirmish that will provide cover for damaging and continually sabotaging the Southstream pipeline (and/or other pipelines)?

One can conceptually throw all the globalists in the loony bin (and it is tempting), but ascribing insanity to dangerous entities is itself dangerous as it leads to discounting of hidden motives.

In fact, with the new weaponry that despised Russia has developed, plus her flourishing on sanctions like the rats on Warfarin, and add in that every move America makes to try and hurt Russia, it ends up shooting itself in the foot [or higher as Putin noted !!], I’d say the old British term from the table ball game is very appropriate.
American is “snookered”.

Conversely, what is to prevent the US to offer an invitation to the crews of the bombers and the rest of the TDY to visit some American base, not necessarily a combat base but a base? Would that not confuse the Black Hats, or is it too risky? With these issues I think the risk is a good ex[enditure.

Russia is testing new tech for its ICBMs that could defeat NATO missile defenses. Jan. 5, 2018

Notably, the RS-12M Topol missile was equipped with “perspective armament” that would allow it to overcome missile defense systems, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Based off of previous tests, the technology on the missile could be a type of hypersonic glide vehicle. An HGV, as it’s known, is a payload carrying capsule on the top of an ICBM that separates from the missile after it has reached its highest altitude, re-enters the atmosphere, and flies or glides to the target where it detonates.

What makes an HGV’s so threatening is that it can move incredibly fast (possibly up to a mile a second) and fly so low that it could avoid detection from both land and space-based tracking systems.

Additionally, they are also maneuverable — being able to change direction and glide to targets. This means that an HGV does not have a predictable flight path, allowing it to keep its target a secret until the last few seconds before impact.

China tested an HGV in November that could be ready for operational use, meaning they are no longer in the developing stage, which is where Russia and the US are currently.

The moronic schizophrenia about Russian military hardware goes back a long way;their military hardware and capabilities have to be described as inferior while at the same time describing them as formidable. At the same time I think there is consternation, feeling of inadequacy, and “gnashing of teeth”: your country has a military budget less tan a tenth of ours and you’re developing these military capabilities? You’re one country against a grouping of NATO/Occidental forces and you’re doing this? How dare you!

On a related as well as unrelated point – depending on how you look at it – I remember the “old” Cold War propaganda about all Russian women being fat and ugly. Somehow that escaped the ire of Western “feminists.” I mention it because bringing up that propaganda line would be intellectually inconvenient like allegations about Russian military inferiority, albeit for different reasons and with different ramifications.

My in-laws are American, I have visited the USA many times. What no foreigners seem to understand is that most Americans do not listen or care about international events. Honest, they do not bother. They are totally convinced that America is number #1. When asked in what way, they get annoyed and change the topic of conversation. The educational system has been ‘dumbed down’ to the point where most high school graduates lack critical thinking skills. Instead of the Russian government waiting for the average American to wake up and prevent their government from starting a war, they should start building bomb shelters. The leaders are like the citizens; lots of weapons, dumb and easily angered.

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